


Reasons Why I Love You (Razones por las que te quiero)

by inkysand



Series: Love song (Canción de amor) [2]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkward Conversations, Between Episodes, Developing Relationship, Early in Canon, Episode Related, Everything is Beautiful, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Love, I Love You, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Nothing Hurts, One Shot Collection, Overthinking, Past Relationship(s), Relationship(s), Team Bonding, They're allowed be happy, Time Skips, Timeline What Timeline, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-02-08 11:17:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18622255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkysand/pseuds/inkysand
Summary: Their relationship is a new bud, growing and trembling in the spring after a rough winter.





	1. Because we found each other.

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Reasons Why I Love You (Razones por las que te quiero)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14485218) by [Alphecca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alphecca/pseuds/Alphecca). 



> N/A: I didn’t plan on continuing the _It goes like this_ universe so soon, but I found a post called “44 Reasons Why I Love You.” It resonated with Steve and Danny in so many ways, so here we are. I don’t know if this will end up being just short stories, but there may be more or less than I’ve marked. There might be mixed drabbles and vignettes. Time will tell.
> 
> N/T: This story was completed last year.

It goes like this:

 

“Grace asked if she should keep calling me Uncle Steve.”

Danny blinks like he’s coming out of trance, eyes swimming in confusion while he returns to the present. Steve considers that a victory all on its own. Since they left Rachel’s house, the whole trip back home, they’d been sitting in silence. Experience had taught Steve that a silent Danny meant problems, way more than when he was complaining. Although it’s not the kind of quiet that worries him the most, the kind that Danny had used during Christmas and after, that had been slowly destroying him, that had created the distance between them…It’s not a comfortable silence, either. 

Something is hovering in the empty space between them and Steve needs to know what it is. He needs to know, at least, that it’s got nothing to do with them. Their relationship is like a new bud, growing and trembling in the spring after a rough winter. And he needs to know that they’re all right as soon as possible. 

Letting things go is no good. Going easy on Danny doesn’t work, either.

“And what does she want to call you?” he asks, his curiosity inevitable and the distraction, welcome. He accepts the beer he’s being offered and gets comfortable on the patio chair, ignoring the scenery completely.

“I don’t know yet.” Steve looks briefly at the ocean so Danny won’t see into his soul. “I told her she can call me whatever she wants to.”

“That’s wide open, Steven. Grace is eight years old, you realize what you’ve gotten into?”

He shrugs in response.

Truth is, all things considered, it doesn’t matter at all what she calls him. Maybe he should be scared how much Grace has come to mean to him in such a short time, but he can’t find a single bit of himself that feels anything but love for that little girl.

He hasn’t told Danny that yet because he's not sure how it would be received.

“What happened with Rachel?” he asks, after another moment of calm. He doesn’t want to start a fight, not with Danny looking so tranquil, but he can’t let it go. “You’ve been quiet since we got back.”

Danny is, maybe, the only person he knows who can shout without words.

“Rachel…She wanted to talk to me about something private and—she took me by surprise, really.”

Steve’s hands tense around the neck of the bottle.

“About us?”

Whatever that was—there was no name for what they had between them. Not really. It had begun as a strange ritual when one of them was depressed, sure, and then had escalated into something totally different. Something unexpected and…not, at the same time. Steve feels that, regardless of what he’d expected, the two of them together was the end they’d always been heading toward. He hasn’t said that to Danny, either.

“It’s not about us, babe. Besides, Rachel is—okay with the idea.” Something inside Steve relaxes into Danny’s tone, the softness of his words. In a world Steve sees as full of lies and tricks, Danny’s honesty is refreshing. “It’s—it’s something a little personal. She…she wants a baby.” 

His brain takes a few minutes to register the information.

“She wants a baby,” he repeats.

“Yeah, uh, more like Rachel and Stan want a baby,” Danny says. Steve’s confusion must be obvious because his partner’s look softens and a smile spreads across his face. “Yeah, that was my reaction too. More or less. It was a strange conversation, you can imagine, but at the same time…Stan left to give me time to think it over, but he seemed so relieved when I said I was going to think about it that—”

He gently brushes his arm, because Danny is babbling and not getting anywhere. Steve knows that he’s missing half the story.

“Uh, uh. You need to start at the beginning, Danno.” 

Danny looks at him for a moment then sits up a little straighter. Steve leans forward in response, giving into the impulse to be as close as possible now, now that he knows he is _welcome_. He used to think that intimacy was all about being together in bed, in the moments after sex, but it was a fleeting thought at the best of times.

It’s different with Danny.

Steve is different with Danny. Because when their hands meet and twine together halfway it doesn’t feel clumsy or uncomfortable. It’s a new thing, recent, but it feels…good. Danny looks at their interlaced fingers for a moment and smiles that smile that makes Steve think about the sun after a storm, about dawn fighting off the night. He relaxes a little more and his whole posture reflects it.

“Yeah, sorry. Like I was saying…Rachel wants a baby. The thing is, Stan’s got fertility problems. It looks like that’s been a problem with their marriage lately. They thought about, you know, artificial insemination and, well, they thought about me. They want me to be the donor.”

There’s something unspoken in Danny’s gaze, an infinity of emotions contradicting each other. Steve isn’t sure what to say or do with the information. Not long ago, Rachel was threatening to use Gracie’s custody to make his partner’s life more difficult. No matter how nice the woman had seemed when he met her, Steve hates her whims and the effect that they have on Danny.

Except a child isn’t a whim, it can’t be, and Steve thinks that Danny was born to be a father. But Danny wouldn’t be the father.

Stan would be.

It’s complicated, of course it is. There aren’t many things in their lives that aren’t. 

“You don’t have to decide right away,” he says.

“I don’t think I can think about anything else right now.”

Steve knows that feeling well. In spite of being very different, there are ways that they are so much alike they could be looking at an image in the mirror.

“Whatever you decide, I’m with you.” The words are heavy on his tongue but he means every one. “I’m with you, Danno.”

This moment feels like a miracle. A few months ago, being in each other’s quiet company like this had been so far away that Steve can’t stop asking himself how they’d gotten here.

He wonders how to make sure they don’t get lost again.

“I know.”

Danny squeezes his hand as an answer, sending warmth through his whole body, and that’s everything. They’ll be all right.


	2. Because you confuse me. And that’s a good thing.

It goes like this:

 

“You don’t have a choice, Danny.”

Steve knows that Danny isn’t listening, or rather, deliberately ignoring him, refusing to pay attention to his efforts to console him. His eyes are lost in the blur of lights coming through the Camaro’s windshield.

Rachel had called him, sounding way more upset than Steve would have expected, saying that Danny had come by the house to see Grace and didn’t look very good.

Although he doesn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle, Steve knows what happened: Danny had found Matt. And it ended about as well as could be expected.

Maybe in time, Danny would be able to find comfort in the fact that Matthew Williams was a prisoner and not wiped off the map, but Steve doesn’t think it’s going to come anytime soon.

“You want to tell me what happened when you found him?”

A few months ago he wouldn’t have asked, but Danny had started the habit of sharing things with him, and Steve won’t deny that he’s being eaten up by curiosity. He’s felt it more since they began…well, the relationship they have now. Although Steve isn’t good at sharing things, he knows Danny’s making a conscious effort to help him do it more…easily. He’s promised himself he would try, too. But that would have to wait for now.

“What do you want me to tell you, Steve?” he asks, without taking his eyes off the scenery and the night. “That my brother was about to get away with it? That the only reason I could stop him is because I’m part of Five-0 and mentioning your name is almost miraculous?”

The ‘What did I miss?’ stays silent between them but Steve recognizes the rhetorical tone. Danny tends to feel responsible for the people around him, especially the ones he considers his. It’s the root of his excessive worry about things that can go wrong.

A lot of things have already gone wrong.

Steve wonders if it’s an endless spiral or if he can help Danny to see he’s doesn’t have to take care of everything all alone. And this thought, as surprising as it is, doesn’t feel foreign to him when it comes to Danny.

Steve takes responsibility for his own.

“You can start by telling me what happened after you left the hotel.”

“After you lied to the feds, you mean.”

Steve blinks at the strangled sound of the words. He waves his arm hoping that Danny will continue without him having to intervene.

The silence lasts for an infinite instant.

“He was just about to board the plane when I arrived,” Danny says when the quiet is just about to become intolerable. It still sounds a little hollow.

Steve is tempted to stop the car in the next available spot, drag Danny into his arms and chase away whatever dark thoughts he has. But in the Camaro they always talk and argue openly, as if it’s a refuge. Perhaps because they’re both trapped inside, literally can’t run away from each other in the confined space. There aren’t any other ears listening. He doesn’t stop anywhere.

“He wasn’t expecting you to tie up the loose ends so fast,” he comments. He wants to have some words with Matthew Williams but since he’s in FBI custody, Steve knows that he and Danny should stay away.

It’s pure luck they haven’t come after them for obstruction of justice.

“I don’t know what he was expecting, Steve. I don’t know what he was thinking—I don’t know why…”

Danny makes a frustrated gesture, as if he doesn’t understand what actually goes through his brother’s head.

Steve can sympathize.

Situations with Mary hadn’t ever been so extreme, but his sister often got into trouble when Steve was seeing her on leave to cut his visit short.

“So what happened?”

Danny looks at him for a moment but when Steve turns to meet his eyes, they’ve already moved away again.

“He told me I had two options,” Danny says, and his voice sounds so distant that Steve grips the steering wheel hard so he doesn’t hit something. He hates it when Danny sounds like this. “He told me I had to shoot or say goodbye.”

Oh.

“I was about to let him go, you know? I stood there like an idiot while he got on the plane. It was only after—after I made the call.”

Steve knows what he’s talking about. The Governor had had to intervene because the FBI wanted jurisdiction in the case, and they decided that Steve and Danny were a danger to the investigation. Matthew’s plane had been detained after takeoff. Maybe that was why nothing much had happened with the authorities.

But Danny had to let his brother be arrested.

And he’d gone to Rachel and not to Steve when everything was over.

And he hadn’t called since he left the hotel—and that hurt—so Steve had to go picking up the pieces to try to understand what had happened.

More than knowing what was going through Matthew’s head, he would really prefer to know how Daniel Williams’ mind worked.

“My apartment was the last exit.”

“What?”

Danny’s still not looking at him. His voice sounds like a rumble of thunder.

“My apartment.”

“You want to go to your apartment?”

Danny has spent the last two weeks practically living at his house. Since they’d begun…whatever this was—Steve really needed to decide how to define it—they’d begun to spend more time together. He’d thought it was a way to make up for the distance before but also…he’d also thought—

“I’d really like to go to my apartment, yes, thanks for asking. And as I said, it was the last exit. So you could, you know, turn around and drop me off there.”

He doesn’t like the way that sounds, but he doesn’t feel like arguing with Danny right now. Especially if that’s what he’s looking for.

He makes the turn and tries not to let it bother him that Danny relaxes in his seat.

Neither of them speaks again until they arrive at the apartment door. It’s not a place Steve likes much but he supposes he’s biased, anyway. He’d like to have Danny with him all of the time in his house and, look at that, that isn’t something he’s seriously thought about on a conscious level up till now.

Danny would probably laugh if he knew what he’s thinking about.

“Thanks for the ride, partner,” he says, on a completely different page like he always is when it comes to Steve’s epiphanies.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in for coffee?” he asks. There’s no way Danny is leaving him behind and he signals this eloquently by turning the motor off to go in with him.

“It’s after midnight.”

Danny seems to think that’s an objection. The car door closes with finality in the night.

“I like midnight coffee.”

“That, my friend, is a barefaced lie. This time of night you’re sleeping like a koala.”

It’s a vain attempt to act normal, making it clear that Danny isn’t ready to stretch out their time together. But Steve isn’t leaving him alone tonight.

“That is totally…you never see me sleeping 22 hours a day, Danny. That’s not healthy.”

If Danny is referring to Steve’s innocent habit of trapping him in his arms and not letting him go, well—well, that’s another subject.

“They sleep—? Forget it. It’s been a long day, Steve. We’re not doing this.”

“I have a bag with a change of clothes. I’m not going anywhere.” Danny looks at him for the first time in what seems like an eternity and his eyes look haunted. Steve wants to touch him so much that it _hurts_. It’s not the first time this has happened.

“Steve…”

“I’m not leaving you alone. If you don’t want to talk to me, that’s fine. We can sit in different corners, ignore each other all night.”

“Maybe I want to be alone.”

And that’s the point. Danny doesn’t want to be alone and even less when he says it out loud. He even remembers his voice from way back, when they’d found themselves in a boat with the uncertainty about Grace’s custody, and how broken he’d sounded.

‘ _I’m going to be alone on this island._ ’

He’s worked hard to show him that no, he’s not alone. And damn it if he’s going to leave him alone.

“You really don’t.”

“And you know what I want?” There’s a flash of irritation on Danny’s face, a shining defiance in his eyes, and Steve welcomes it.

The anger is real. Anger is good when it comes to Danny.

“What you want? That’s easy. Probably what you want most right now is to start the week over. To believe that your brother came to visit for some more ordinary reason, like because he missed you or missed Grace. Because you’ve been here on the island for a year. Probably you want to forget what you found out and go back to a time when it was better for both of you.”

Danny’s face stays blank, totally empty, and that just makes Steve hate Matthew Williams a little more than he had a few moments ago. He takes a step closer, still hesitating, and counts it as a victory when Danny doesn’t move away. He still doesn’t know if he’s entirely welcome. Danny confuses him more often than not.

“How—”

He reaches out a hand and hides his triumphant smile when his fingers touch the palm of his hand, cold in spite of the heat. He traces invisible circles over his knuckles. The streetlight bathes Danny’s face in contrasts and his eyes look as dark as the bottom of the ocean.

“How do you think I felt when I knew my father had been deceiving me my whole life about what happened with my mother?” he asks. He knows how family betrayal feels. “The only thing I’m asking is that you let me be with you, Danno. It’s what you always tell me, right? When I lose my head about that.”

Danny doesn’t respond for a long time. He sighs, finally defeated, and steps forward, resting his forehead on Steven’s shoulder. The tension of the day stays in the line of his back. He puts his free arm around his shoulders and, in spite of it not being an ideal position, it’s a relief to have him so near.

“I don’t want to be alone.”

“I’m here. You don’t have to be alone.”

“You say that a lot.”

“Because you never pay attention to it. When I told you that I’m here with you, I meant this too. I don’t want to just see the good parts.”

Danny blinks. He draws away a little so he can look him in the face and Steve finds something more than regret in his expression.

“You realize that sounds like a marriage vow, right?” he asks and there’s a trace of humor in his words. “Don’t forget I did that once.”

“Does that mean the next time someone asks us how long we’ve been married I can give them a date?”

Danny laughs, sounding a little more in control of himself, a little less beaten.

“I would love to be there when you answer that question.”

He relaxes a little more when Steve takes a minute to hug him for real. Danny sighs deeply, unsure if he wants to say anything, but in the end doesn’t.

“Can I stay, then, Danny?”

“My bed isn’t as comfortable as yours.”

“That’s true.” He rests his lips on his temple while he answers. “We can go back to my house.”

“Yeah…but let’s stay right here a while.”

“That’s fine, Danno.”


	3. Because I have faith in us

It goes like this:

 

Steve doesn’t know why he thought it would be a good idea to offer Danny a permanent place in his house. Well…well, he knows exactly why he did it. It’s no secret that Danny hasn’t had a lot of good moments since he got to island, and that he didn’t have a whole lot of money. Certainly his situation is better than it was at the start, when he arrived in Hawaii. But he can’t understand why he decided that this was the best solution, instead of looking for someplace cheap and nearby, something that would let them both have their own space when they got tired of being together. Danny had been resigned at first, which bugged him, and had accepted reluctantly when Steve had said they were practically living together anyway, spending all their nights at the house.

The first days living together hadn’t been bad, far from it, but over time it became difficult to deny that their time at home was going to be as volatile as their relationship at work. It’s not completely clear if Danny knowing that he doesn’t have anywhere else to go has affected the situation or not.

Truth is, he doesn’t care if that’s the case or not. What matters is that he can feel his certainty that living together would be manageable getting shaky. They have totally different ideas about what rules have been set, how things should be done, and why some things are forgivable and others aren’t. It’s such a huge contrast to the previous situation that patience is running out fast for both of them.

It’s not like they had much to start with, really.

“Showers are three minutes,” he tiredly reminds Danny when he sees him coming upstairs. Danny’s only answer is a sigh. He passes a hand over his face looking worn and Steve strangles the impulse to apologize with all his strength. The last few days haven’t been easy.

On one hand there’s Rachel and her unexpected proposal hanging over them, his brother’s last visit weighing down Danny’s shoulders—he hasn’t mentioned the situation since—and on the other hand there’s the chimerical appearance of a woman who Danny doesn’t know if he can trust or not, and who Steve thinks could be the key to finding Wo Fat.

And although Special Agent Jenna Kaye is an unknown in the grand scheme of things, it’s a step closer to finding the truth. He can’t let her go.

“This isn’t going to work, Steven.”

The calm words stop him more efficiently than an all-out fight could have.

Steve waits a moment too long to realize that Danny isn’t reading his mind, that he’s not referring to the argument that they left in limbo before getting home. Fortunately. There have been a lot of times that he’s really thought that he can see into his soul.

“What?”

He sounds so pathetic that he makes an effort to lighten up. Danny is unpredictable in many ways and Steve has to be careful when it comes to their relationship.

“This, us living together…it’s not working,” he says carefully. “It’s not _going_ to work. The sooner you get that, the better—stop making that face, please.”

“What face?”

“That face that you make when you’re not getting your way. Look, I’m not saying we should break up, or that I’m not going to stay here like before, but it’s—we’re clearly not going anywhere.”

“If you’re going to go backward with every aspect of our relationship…we really aren’t going anywhere.”

He doesn’t miss the flash of pain in Danny’s face, it’s so fast he could’ve overlooked it if he didn’t know exactly what it meant.

“I’m not going backward,” he responds softly. “If I thought that I couldn’t handle that intense McGarrett focus I would’ve left the island after catching Hesse.”

“We’re not at work, Danno.”

Their relationship is…separate from work. It has to be. Steve _needs_ it to be separate from work, to keep the crime and cases they deal with every day far away as much as possible. He’s tried to put things in totally different boxes. It’s not as easy as it used to be, it isn’t, but he needs it to stay sane.

He’s not sure he can face each day with the possibility of putting Danny in the line of fire if they start mixing things.

It’s even harder for Danny to separate the two sides of their lives, but even so he’s adapting easier than he’d expected, given his tendency to complain about everything.

“I know,” he says, and comes a little closer, closing the distance between them. Steve relaxes at the gesture and Danny laughs in response. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

“What?”

Danny looks at him with exasperation and something else Steve can’t identify. It’s a look that heats his blood.

“When you don’t get your way you get really tense, and you don’t even realize. You know we don’t have to live together to be _together_ , right? Me looking for another place doesn’t mean I don’t want this. Us.”

He knows that, sure, but it’s still a relief to hear it anyway. He lets out a breath of air he didn’t know he’d been holding.

He imagines, more than sees, Danny roll his eyes but the protest dies in his throat when firm hands pull his shoulders down and Danny traps his lips in a long, deep kiss.

Time is lost, so far away.

“Most people don’t start living together so soon.”

Of course, Danny has to insist on continuing the argument when Steve’s mind is miles away, focused on all the other things they could be doing.

He resigns himself, because of course he does, to getting this argument over with once and for all.

“Danno, I hate to burst your bubble…but we’re not like most people.”

That wins him a smile and he leans forward to taste the expression.

“We don’t have to argue over the same things again and again, Steve. We should—”

“Let’s make a deal, then.”

“Are you talking about a deal like when we met and decided not to shoot each other?” Danny asks against his lips.

“That worked okay, right?”

Danny looks at him, obviously amused, and Steve can feel the rest of the tension evaporate. If Danny can still see the humor in the situation, his decision can’t be that serious.

“You realize that this sounds more and more like you’re thinking about being in a committed relationship with me, you know that, Steven?”

“Thought that was the point of asking you to live with me.”

“I thought your point was me not spending money on rent.”

“Well, that too.”

Steve  kisses him again, because he can, and Danny laughs into it. The sound reverberates with the waves of the ocean and makes Steve want to fuse the two images into one. Danny rarely gets close to the ocean if it’s not for some particular reason—to be with Grace or go surfing with Kono—and he promises himself he’ll find out what his hidden reasons are for rejecting it, so he can change them.

He wants to combine a lot of things, and having Danny’s laughter there is part of most of them.

He must have kept staring like an idiot because Danny is frowning, looking a little confused. It would look adorable if it weren’t for the flutter in his stomach and the certainty that he is in the exactly place that he should be. Maybe he should say that to Danny…

“Are you sure you don’t want to go swimming with me for a while?”

…next time.

“What part of ‘I only swim to survive’ isn’t clear, McGarrett?” he asks, rolling his eyes. “And before you go off to swim, Aquaman, you should think about what you’re going to do on your date.”

“My  _date_?”

“Weren’t you the one who left the office early to go pickup the CIA lady, and get yourself a date?” Danny tells him, and Steven doesn’t miss the sincere trace of annoyance, an echo of what he saw in the office. “I hope you’re completely prepared, Steven.”

“She wants to get Wo Fat as much as I do—how did we go from talking about our living arrangements to Jenna Kaye?”

Danny leans a little closer, his eyes as steady and warm as that first afternoon when they sat together drinking on the back patio, that first meeting of two different worlds.

“Because in order for us to live together, it’s a necessary condition for you to be, you know, _living_. And I’m not about to leave you alone with any of your crises…Besides, it’s not as if it’s surprising or anything, a woman shows up suddenly on the island to give stuff out of your dad’s box, the box that was definitely stolen by one of Wo Fat’s accomplices, and that he had hold of for a while. We can’t be careless after what happened with the last person involved in this.”

The death of Koji Noshimuri hangs in the air, unmentioned. Steve can hear it clearly enough. It’s one of Danny’s talents, saying things without saying exactly what he’s talking about. Or maybe Steve just really pays attention.

He doesn’t really want to think about it. Not now. Later he’ll go back to concentrating on the case, on Jenna and Wo Fat. But Danny is here, close and warm, like an invitation to fall. He touches Danny’s cheek, tilting his head to capture his lips in another kiss.

“Does that mean you’re going to stay _here_?” he asks, trying not to sound as triumphant as he feels.

Danny sighs. His hands find a way to Steve’s face and stay there, so he can’t look anywhere but into his eyes.

“You’re missing the point, Steven.”

It takes a moment for his brain to connect back to the conversation they’d been having.

“Are you saying that you’re coming with me to my meeting with Jenna?”

Danny gives him a luminous smile.

“I thought you’d never ask, babe.”


	4. Because you remind me of things I thought I’d forgotten

It goes like this:

 

“The birthday boy should have a smile on his face,” Danny says when he shows up in his office mid-morning on Thursday, beaming. His smile makes Steve think he was missing a joke. “You didn’t seem all that enthusiastic about the date yesterday.”

“I don’t usually celebrate my birthday,” he answers with a shrug.

He really isn't sure if he should explain.

Freddie had always made a point of remembering the date, and there was no shortage of old friends congratulating him when it rolled around to March and the right time, but Steve had never been especially interested in the celebrations. Over time, his closest friends had dispersed into their own, parallel lives and he’d lost contact with them. Aunt Deb and Mary occasionally sent him a simple gift, same as his father. If they knew where he was. If they could communicate.

But other than those minor details, the tenth of March got lost in the rapidly passing days.

Danny’s smile fell a little and he got an expression that wasn’t compassion or pity but looked more like indignation about the things that Steve had missed out on. Alone in his office, Steve allows himself to give into the attraction that pulls him to Danny and sits down with him on the sofa, forgetting the paperwork. There are no curious eyes around. Chin and Kono had gone to interview some witnesses from their last case, and he can indulge for a moment.

Danny sits close, enough so Steve could put his arm around his shoulders if he wants to, but he makes no other move, sticking to their deal to keep their personal lives a little separate from work.

“That changes starting now, babe, you know that, right?” he asks after a short silence, squeezing his knee.

Steve nods. This day already feels completely different from usual. But it’s not bad, at all. To the contrary. Sometimes noticing the enormous difference scares him.

And it’s that his days in Hawaii seem to belong to someone else.

It’s Grace, who calls his phone early in the morning and tells him that her Danno promised to bring her to see him because the two of them have to give him the gift they bought, ending the call by wishing him a happy, happy birthday—Steve decides that it’s a Williams thing, the way they make him want to wrap them in his arms and never let go.

It’s Chin’s smile and Kono’s hug when he gets to the office, timid and sensible gifts that touch his heart in ways he didn’t know they could. Steve stares at the cover of the book Chin brought him, _Warrior Soul_ , and remembers that his father had talked about this book years ago. The way Chin looks when he thanks him stays engraved on his soul. Kono’s gift is more practical. She gave him a pass to a myriad of outside activities to try in Hawaii with whoever he thinks best (and Steve couldn’t stop laughing at the way she looked at Danny while she said this.)

It’s Mary’s voice on the other end of the line, saying that she misses him and hopes they can see each other again soon. And it’s the voice of Aunt Deb, more maternal than she’s ever seemed, closer to his heart than he’d expected.

It’s Danny, who woke up surprisingly early with a look that Steve can’t define in the dark, eyes full of something dangerously warm, and a kiss that turns into many more, while he thinks it’s more fantasy than reality. That he’d promised to reserve the weekend for the two of them, after Steve agreed to spend more time squeezed into this little group. Being the center of attention in a way that is new and familiar all at once.

“I think there’s a place I want to take you, Danno.”

Danny makes a protesting noise, but he’s smiling. Steve wonders if the idea of butterflies in the stomach is a little too immature. His mind travels to the petroglyphs he used to visit with his dad, a secret place that he suddenly wants to share with Danny.

There’s a lot that he wants to share with Danny.

“I get the feeling that I’m not going to like this,” his partner murmurs, his voice softer in the solitude of his office. “Where do you want to go? It’s not going to be one of those crazy activities that Kono gave you, right? Because I draw the line at jet packs…”

He smiles, because he knows that this will make Danny’s speculations go from _realistic_ to completely irrational faster that he can imagine.

“It’s a surprise, Danny.”

“It’s your _birthday_ , Steve. We’re supposed to be coming up with these things.”

He wants to say that his just being there is enough of a gift. But he’s not sure if Danny’s ready to hear that yet. He’s not sure if he’s strong enough to say it out loud, to give power and form to this feeling. They’ve been in this relationship without a name for months and he worries that his partner has doubts about Steve’s level of commitment to…them.

He hopes not.

Danny’s telephone rings and the words evaporate before they get out of his mouth.

“Well, birthday boy,” Danny smiles at him as he hangs up, patting his knee before standing, making him realize that he’s missed the whole conversation. “We’ve got a meeting to attend at Kamekona’s truck. But first we have to go pick up a very persistent guest.”

Steve stands up right away at that. Danny doesn’t need to say the name, the smile on his face makes it clear who he’s talking about.

“You’re not going to tell me what Grace got me?”

“I wouldn’t do that to my monkey. And anything that Grace gives you, you’ll love,” Danny says with certainty. And he’s so right that something in his chest squeezes in response.

Steve follows him to the Camaro and holds out his hand for the keys.

“What are you going to give me?”

Danny gives him a smile. His eyes go soft, suddenly, and Steve is tempted to reach out a hand and touch him, the rules that they’ve set for these days vanishing into the distance.

“What makes you think I’m going to give you anything?”

“I know you,” Steve says. Danny has been evasive, which means he’s hiding something.

“Okay, yeah, but you have to wait until the weekend.”

Steve finds that interesting.

“It’s Thursday, Danno.”

“I’m glad that the army has taught to to identify the days of the week.”

“Seriously, Danny? You’re going with that as a distraction?”


	5. Because you draw hearts in the air

It goes like this:

 

“A heart.”

Steve hadn’t been planning on talking but once the words come out of his mouth he realizes that he really, _really_ needs to talk about it. His intentions had been hidden behind his humor all day. Maybe because Danny hadn’t said anything about it, not when they met up, not during the team meeting, and not even when they were alone in the house after an exhausting day.

Steve had learned, during the time they’d known each other, that Danny and silence didn’t go together well. And he has an impulse to break the quiet, an impulse with reverse polarity.

“What?” Danny asks, his voice flat with tiredness.

Steve turns a little to look at him, finding only the lines of his profile against the light, silhouetted by the silvery glow of the moon that slips timidly into the room. Suddenly, Steve is thinking about how much he’d love to see Danny in the moonlight under different circumstances. He imagines looking into his dark, burning eyes, his hair a tangled halo under his fingers, his skin golden, shining and salt-sweaty…

 _Yes_.

That idea would have to wait until his arm heals.

“You drew a heart in the air, Danno. For _me_. While they were lifting me out in the helicopter.”

Danny blinks.

He can easily make out his face in the dark but Steve, honestly, doesn’t need to see his face. He can feel the tension in his whole body thanks to the sudden lack of motion beside him. Sleeping together was something they started before deciding that they wanted to start a relationship, long before Steve decided to hold on to this reality, and it’s one of his favorite parts of the day. They don’t have to be anything except Steve and Danny, when they find themselves in each other’s company.

He distantly wonders if it’s ironic that sex is the simplest part of their relationship, although ‘simple’ isn’t exactly the right word. It’s…not as complicated as the rest.

The worst thing about having his arm in a cast, unluckily broken, is that Danny is being so careful that he’s stayed away from him all day, alternating between concerned and suffocating as only he could. Trying not to overwhelm Steve on one hand, not wanting to admit to his anxiety, but not knowing how to offer comfort, either. He feels miles away, even when they’re in the same house.

It’s not entirely Danny fault, either. He doesn’t know how to accept being cared for.

“Yeah, well, I was worried.”

Steve wants to see Danny’s face now that he’s moving, drawing back like a wave returning to the ocean, but he restricts himself to finding his cold hands. He draws lines on the back with the tips of his fingers because that’s always worked to remove the tension in his body.

“Hearts don’t exactly show worry.”

Danny snorts.

“For  _me_ , _yes_ they do.”

 _That’s true_ , Steve considers.

Danny’s personality comes with a high dose of worry, with camouflaged anxiety and fierce devotion. It’s the part of him that leaves an entire life behind for a few hours with his daughter in a place that feels inhospitable. The part that fights tooth and nail for his friends without caring who he’s up against, fights for memories and injustices against a whole police department and his own partner. The part that feels bad for other people’s suffering and tries desperately to fix everything, even by something as simple as soothing a child on an elevator.

But even so.

Even so, it had been _significant_. It was significant to him. And to Danny…to Danny, obviously, too.

“Do you go around drawing hearts for Chin and Kono when I’m not looking?” he asks, because Danny reacts faster, more openly, to their discussions than to anything else and this is his first move. “Because I could get jealous about that.” He doesn’t even need to turn the light on to know that Danny is rolling his eyes as usual when he’s questioning Steve’s intelligence.

“As if you would know what being _jealous_ is.”

He blinks. He knows that it’s an evasion when he hears it but goes along with the change in subject…for the moment.

“You think I don’t?”

He doesn’t need to see his face to know that he’s rolling his eyes again.

“Gotta keep in mind, Steve, that between the two of us,  _I’m_ the jealous one.”

There are so many things wrong in the cadence of Danny’s voice that he can’t respond for a minute. He shouldn’t ever sound so insecure, so small, so not-Danny. Not when he can fill a room without company, when he can illuminate a place with his presence, and without question have everyone’s eyes on him once he’s in motion.

“So  _yes_ , you were a jealous brother.”

Steve freezes the instant the words cross his lips, for different reasons. Maybe his partner is right and he needs to develop his social skills.

They haven’t talked about Matt.

They haven’t referred to the subject since they got the news from Danny’s parents. Fortunately, they didn’t blame the older son for the younger’s stupid decisions, something that Steve appreciated more than he could say, knowing from experience that it isn’t easy. Mary and he are the perfect example.

“I’m not going to break if we talk about my brother,” Danny says, his voice as soft as a caress, and Steve can breathe again. “Seriously, the relief is insulting…I’m stronger than I look. We don’t have to all be in the Navy to learn how to carry the heavy things in life, Steven.”

And that is, possibly, the reason that Steve wants to protect him. Danny sounds like someone who _knows_ what he’s talking about.

“It’s got nothing to do with being a Marine,” he assures him, with conviction. “It’s different when it’s about family, Danno. And anyway, don’t you remember, when what happened—the thing about your brother, you tried to avoid me. I don’t want that to happen again. You went to see _Rachel_.”

He doesn’t consider himself a jealous person, that’s true, he never was with Catherine before. And he didn’t think that was going to change with Danny. However…there it is.  In the acrid feeling that fills his stomach with the memory of Rachel, so clear that it seems burned into his eyes, and the way she looked at him. She knows the power that she has over Danny, like a spell, and she doesn’t hesitate to use it. It’s also in the irritation that he feels every time those blue eyes follow the curves on the beach, and Steve has to remind himself that _looking_ at other people is perfectly natural.

“I went to see Grace,” Danny corrects him. “Who _happens_ to live with Rachel, you know, legally. But yeah, I didn’t react well that time…I’m sorry. I promise not to do it again.”

It’s an apology as good as he’ll get on his best day.

He wonders, with a trace of bitterness, what Danny will do the next time. Run away from Steve or go with Rachel and Grace?

“So why?”

“Why?”

“Why did you react like that?”

There’s a pause.

Steve can still see the doubt on his partner’s face when he turns to look at him, in the way his lower lip hides behind his teeth. He really hates having broken his arm. It’s one of those moments when he should have it around Danny’s shoulders, with the minimum possible distance between them.

Finally, Danny sighs. His eyelids droop for a moment, putting distance between them. It’s so strange for Steve to realize Danny can’t find the words, that he feels the tension climbing up his spine.

“You lied to the FBI that night. You, when you’ve known me less than a year and you didn’t know anything about my brother, you lied to several federal agents to give me the chance to make things right…because you believed that I could do it.”

“I believe in you,” he says, and it’s a truth that’s easy to recognize out loud.

He wants to tell him that he’d had the same look that day that he’d had during the Meka case. He hadn’t believed then, the first time, but he wasn’t ready to make the same mistake again.

“Matty was about to betray everything for…for money. He didn’t care what it would do to Mom and Dad—to Grace. To me. I don’t believe that I could’ve helped him even…that I did everything I could to save him…I thought it would be easy.”

He hesitates to break the silence for so long that Steve pushes him.

“You know that I wouldn’t have judged you if you’d let him go.”

Because in spite of Danny being wrong about Matt, it wouldn’t have made any difference.

“I couldn’t have looked you in the face _if_ I’d let him go. And Matty was right about something he told me, you know?” Danny’s voice had gotten much smaller. “I’m not as good as I like to think I am.”

Steve closes his eyes. _Matthew Williams._

“Are you telling me that you didn’t want to see me because you thought that I…what? That I was going to judge you for your brother’s mistakes? They were his decisions, not yours. Lying was my decision, anyway. You chose the law. You’re still the same good man—”

“No,” Danny interrupts, cautiously. He looks away again, as if looking at Steve is unbearable. “I wasn’t thinking about the law at that moment. I didn’t do it. What—what I mean to say is that I couldn’t choose Matty. Not…when I’d already chosen you. Can we not talk about this any more?”

The contradiction that this man is never stops surprising him.

“This is important. What do you mean? What are you talking about, ‘chosing me?’”

Danny bites his lips again and Steve wants…so much, so much to be able to heal by force of will. The pain in his arm is like a dull hum that he can ignore in favor of a tranquil moment between the two of them. Even so, Danny stays far away. Until he can find a way to convince him he won’t break.

“Danno—”

And it’s the only thing that escapes his mouth. Danny sighs, long and unhappy.

“I’d rather _he_ hates me than lose your trust and let you down, okay? When I saw him board the plane I was only thinking that I couldn’t let you see that side of me. So that’s it. Can we go to sleep now?”

Steve tightens his fingers around Danny’s wrist. They could keep arguing for hours and he knows it. So he decides the most sensible thing is to surrender because Daniel Williams only listens to you when he wants to listen to you.

“Okay. But come closer.”

He’s not convinced he can. It’s obvious, not just in the tension that remains in Danny’s body, but in the silence that scratches at the space between them. He makes an attempt to get closer from his side but the movement seems to alarm Danny more than anything.

“I think I’ll sleep in the other room…I move a lot in my sleep. I could hit you while—”

He surpresses a sigh in the dark.

“Don’t do that.”

“Would you even notice? You sleep like the dead, Steve. And with your arm…”

“You never complained before.”

“You  _never_ complained before.”

“No, Danny, I mean—uh.”

Of course, like he does sometimes, Danny can say exactly what Steve is thinking.

“If you are _referring_ to your habit of channeling a koala while you sleep and thinking I’m a pillow, then, no. It doesn’t bother me. I’m not going to complain. But you’re hurt, ergo, you should be careful. And if you’re going to hug me like you usually do—”

“What is—Why are you _always_ comparing me to a koala?”

First, Danny stares at him, incredulous. Then suddenly he starts to laugh. And it’s the best sound Steve has heard the _entire_ day.

“You are exasperating,” he says, and wins a smile as brilliant as the sun in response.

“Same back at you, super SEAL.”

Steve smiles at him for a moment, but then pulls on Danny’s wrist again. Harder. Insistent.

“Don’t go.”

Sometimes he feels like he’ll do it. That Danny will leave the island as soon as he has the chance, that one day he’ll discover that Steve isn’t good enough to stay for and he’ll go back to Rachel’s arms. But sometimes, sometimes, Danny looks at him and he knows that, actually…yes. That they are here for the long haul. He hasn’t slept alone in what feels like an eternity and doesn’t intend to change that.

“You mean a lot to me too, Danny,” he murmurs, with his heart stuttering at how fast the words are ripped out of his vocal cords, how the feelings sound and how vulnerable they leave him. “What I told you, what I told you when we started this relationship, it’s still true….”

It’s a surprise to realize that, after thinking for so long that Danny isn’t ready to hear these words, Steve is the one who can’t say them.

It’s an even bigger surprise to feel the tips of Danny’s fingers on his face, gaining strength and confidence. He can’t deny the relief of having those fingers against his face and the ongoing confirmation that Danny will be like this, fire and ice in the touch of his skin. It burns him, sending shivers down his spine.

“I don’t need you to say things because you think it’s what I want to hear. Don’t do that.”

“I won’t,” he says softly. “If you promise me that you won’t run away again.”

“ _Quid pro quo_ , huh.”

“Strictly speaking, using that is referring to a grammatical error in Latin.”

“Then should I say ‘ _Do ut des_ ’ for this conversation to be valid for you?”

“It would be appropriate, sure.”

His free hand finds its way to Danny’s neck, his palm brushing the soft hair as it comes close. He savors the familiarity of his lips for a moment, the warmth of his breath and something that might have been a sigh, or maybe his name.

“You’re a nerd, you know that?”

It’s not the first time Danny’s told him that.

“Allow me to point out that you know it too.”

“That has a perfectly reasonable explanation that I might tell you about some day.”

_Some day?_

“Why not now?”

Danny laughs.

“Because you should go to sleep. And you don’t have to sound like a five year old…” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Do ut des** :  _I give so that you can give back to me_


	6. Because you say this is like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. And I believe you.

It goes like this:

 

It’s inescapable, at some point. As inevitable as the dawn, or Steve’s insane fascination for explosions. Danny tells himself that he should’ve known it would happen sooner or later, that no couple exists in a vacuum. He knows it perfectly well, of course. It’s the reason his history with Rachel was cut off somewhere along the road it was supposed to follow—and his relationship with Steve also has to confront reality and history, the worries of the present and the lessons of the past. However, it still surprises him, that the reality check arrives with a dark-haired woman who isn’t Rachel.

It’s not so much that Danny hadn’t expected to see Catherine Rollins _ever_ again as much as…Danny hadn’t expected to see Catherine Rollins any time _soon_. Not when his relationship with Steve had undergone a definite change and he feels unbalanced, feels the consequences. It’s taken time for Danny to see Stanley as part of a couple with Rachel, and even more time to respect his place—that Grace loves him helps with that, honestly. So he doesn’t understand why Catherine would set foot in Steve’s house knowing that he’s in a relationship with another person, unless she wants to hurt herself.

Steve can be crushingly hard on himself. Maybe that’s something that Catherine shares, that need to show strength in the face of personal experiences just like you had to in the field. So he thinks that maybe it comes from being trained in the Navy.

It occurs to him, while he watches her cross the threshold, all elegant, beautiful, and graceful, that he really doesn’t know what kind of relationship they had or how many years they’ve known each other. She greets him with an ease that makes his shoulders relax, reflecting the smile on his face. Steve already lost a friend when he arrived in Hawaii, as intense as Nick Taylor’s end was, and Danny doesn’t want him to have to leave his friendships behind. He imagines that it’ll be difficult enough with DADT, even if rumor has it that it’ll be dropped soon. That is, if Danny and Steve stay together, of course.

He still has his doubts. Not so much about Steve, because he knows how stubborn he can be. But Danny…Danny isn’t good at being happy.

“And, Steve?” Catherine asks, her eyes sweeping the room, a mischievous smile touching the corner of her mouth. The sound of the ocean comes through the walls, apparently welcoming. “Let me guess…”

Danny laughs.

“He’s swimming, yeah. He needs his time to channel Aquaman every day. It’s been awhile since he could do it whenever he wants, so he doesn’t come out until he’s starting to turn into a prune—” Catherine looks at him, slightly confused—even with that expression, she looks beautiful, which is frankly humiliating—but Danny isn’t actually surprised that she doesn’t know what happened. Steve is very reserved about everything that could be seen as a weakness. He decides direct is beset, because he doesn’t want to start talking about how and where the accident occurred, either.

The petroglyphs are theirs, for now.

“He broke his arm,” he comments, grimacing in sympathy. “The doctor told him the arm was okay a few days ago, and…”

Catherine’s worry is obvious on her face, a cloud crossing a clear sky, and Danny knows it’s absurd to feel a pang of jealousy in response to genuine, sincere concern.

“He dived in right away?”

“Not immediately. I had to…convince him to wait a bit.”

Catherine blinks, moving her gaze from the back of the room and going back to concentrating on him. There’s a spark of clear astonishment in her eyes.

“You have to tell me how you did that,” she says, a note of amusement beating behind her words. The worry seems to have disappeared. “I’ve never managed to tell him no.”

Danny feels the heat climbing his neck but refuses to blush in front of Steve’s ex-girlfriend. She’s harder to read than Steve is, but there are hints in her expression she can’t control. She might be an excellent poker player…at least for a game that Steven McGarrett is playing in.

He can’t blame her for having a weakness for that idiot. Danny’s guilty of that too.

“He’s lucky to have you,” Catherine murmurs, her face unexpectedly serious. “It’s never been easy for him, you know, to trust people. And he trusts you a lot.”

He can’t not like this woman. They’d barely seen each other a couple of times before today, and Steve certainly doesn’t talk much about her—Steve rarely talks about his past, actually—but it’s a real relief seeing her not resent the breakup and the former relationship. He thought she would. It’s also nice to see that it’s not a front, she really is fine with everything.

“I’m glad you’re doing well,” he tells her, sincerely. “He didn’t tell me that you were coming…we would’ve done something with the team. Kono would’ve insisted that you go surfing with her next time.”

“He doesn’t know,” she responds, smiling again with that amused edge. “It’s been awhile since we talked and I wanted to surprise him.”

“Go see him, then. I’m going to close the garage door, I’m sure he’ll want to catch up with the Marquis and it’s already too much.”

Catherine laughs a little and waves goodbye, saying something under her breath that he doesn’t catch. Danny ignores another stab of pain about how perfect she is for Steve—both are ridiculously good-looking, with similar backgrounds and an understanding of life that Danny can’t begin to imitate. He asks himself if it’s not too selfish to wish that she hadn’t shown up so soon, so suddenly.

He would’ve liked to have time to prepare.

The last few days had already been busy and now Steve’s ex was visiting on top of it.

Rachel and Stan are trying to spend a lot more time with Grace, so that she’d take the news that a baby was on it’s way with more enthusiasm than she’d shown the first time they’d brought it up. Although his little girl isn’t anything like a spoiled brat, thank heavens, after being an only child for ten years it wasn’t easy to get on board with the idea of a new baby in the family taking her place. Everyone is convinced that Grace will be an open and caring big sister, but the truth is that getting used to the change will take time. Danny wants to ask Grace what she thinks about sharing Danny with another person besides Steve before making a final decision about his ex-wife’s proposal.

His life is full of surprises, that’s undeniable.

He’s tempted to go out to the patio behind Catherine and see Steve’s face. It’s always adorable when something positive surprises him. But he decides that he can give them a moment, so he changes direction to the kitchen. He’s not trying to spy on them but the figure silhouetted against the afternoon is hard for his eyes to ignore, and the window seems like a screen looking at a distant reality. He can see Steve walking toward her, looking stupidly attractive, with the water making tracks down his skin. He can also see Catherine’s arms around his shoulders for a moment, affectionately hugging him and…

A kiss.

Danny blinks.

Something clicks in the back of his mind.

Catherine came to see Steve as a surprise…to do what they always do when she comes.

Catherine didn’t know that Danny—

Uh.

It’s not a devastatingly passionate kiss, it doesn’t seem like more than a brush of their lips, but it’s an image that makes him uncomfortable at a higher-than-acceptable level. More uncomfortable than he wishes it did.

A couple of heartbeats go by, and just as Danny is at the point of going through the door to the patio and shooting Steve, he sees that he is pushing her gently away, and he can breathe.

He’s promised Steve that he won’t run away again so he doesn’t run out of the house and slam the door. Calmly, he retraces his steps and goes up to the bedroom.

If Danny doesn’t respond to Steve’s call the first time, it’s probably not on purpose. The water in the shower is relaxing as it spills over him and tickles his hairy chest. It’s easy to ignore the world outside the door, and he dawdles more than he should because he knows it’ll piss off his partner more than anything else. The second time, yeah, he definitely doesn’t answer on purpose because he’s not very enthusiastic about seeing the stupidly perfect face of his…whatever Steven is.

Steve, the Neanderthal, bangs the bedroom door behind him. Danny jumps and almost throws his dirty clothes at him.

“Why’d you slam the door?” he asks, a burst of irritation running through his veins. “You’re going to break something.”

Steve blinks, as if he hadn’t been expecting to see Danny…coming out of the shower.

“I thought you’d left.”

“And slamming the door fixes everything. You are _always_ complaining when I do that.”

Steve answers by crossing his arms, a move that he does all the time when he’s tense, and Danny follows the muscular line of his forearm for a moment before looking back at his face.

As much as he wants to be angry with him, he feels more hurt than anything else.

Catherine was the one who came looking for him.

Catherine was the one who _kissed_ him.

But Catherine…didn’t know that Steve was with someone else, didn’t know their relationship was over, because Steve hadn’t _bothered_ to tell her.

She isn’t the problem.

“I promised you I wouldn’t run away again if I felt like we were having problems, but I guess that…when…when you said that we were different…God, Steve, I _helped_ you cheat on your girlfriend. You let me—”

_Fuck._

Saying it out loud made him want to get back in the shower.

Danny is a worse person than he thought he was.

Steve’s face is carefully blank. “Cath _wasn’t_ my girlfriend. She never was. We…Danny, we’re not together. And yes, okay, we had sex when we were in the same place. We went out a couple of times—”

This is just getting better and _better_.

“Are you telling me that you did the same thing with her that you’re doing with _me_?”

Steve looks like Danny hit him in the stomach. He shakes his head frantically. His eyes are open, horrified by the accusation, and he looks strangely vulnerable at that moment.

“ _What?_ Of course not!”

He blinks unbelievingly.

“That’s what you’re telling me! And you didn’t even tell her about _us_ ,” Danny says. He doesn’t need any other conformation than the guilty look on Steve’s face. He runs a hand over his face. “What does that mean? Were you really expecting to keep having sex with her, this little game you have, even when you were with _me_?”

Danny glares when he sees Steve take a step into the room, totally blocking the exit. His irritation grows every time he tries to calm it down.

“ _No_. Danny, listen—listen to me, okay? Just, for once in your life, _listen_. Cath and I—We don’t talk much unless it’s about favors we owe each other. We don’t call to talk about our lives and our…We have a simple agreement and that’s how it works. If there’s a reason that I didn’t tell her it’s because I was waiting to talk to her in person and—”

This sounds better than any other scenario.

“And? So?"

“So I _forgot_.”

“You forgot what?”

“To call her.”

Danny blinks, totally skeptical.

“ _How?_ ”

Steve grimaces bitterly.

“I forgot. First the stuff with Mary happened, then we…started to go out. Then Rachel proposed the thing about the baby, and there was Matt…you _needed_ me here. Then Jenna showed up and we could…you know, investigate Wo Fat in depth. Then I broke my arm and I—the truth is we didn’t need Naval Intelligence for any of our recent cases…”

Ah.

“She said coming here was a surprise.”

“Yes,” Steve massages his neck a little. “She wanted to surprise me. I’ve been really busy lately.  She didn’t think to call until she saw the Camaro at the door but, she was already here, and…”

If he didn’t know how Steve gets when he’s obsessed, he’d say that everything coming out of his mouth is bull. But he’s seen the behavior before. For almost a year. He’s a man of obsessions, with tunnel vision that Danny appreciates sometimes and hates sometimes. And besides, he’s the worst, really, ridiculously _terrible_ at human interaction.

He’s still an _ass_.

“And now you told her that you forgot to tell her that you’re in a relationship?”

He couldn’t keep all of the coldness out of his tone.

“I didn’t need to say much,” Steve says, curving a little in on himself. He still looks guilty, that look that makes Danny think about puppies about to cry, pulling on his heartstrings. “She knew it when I told her there was someone else. She said that she should’ve suspected because she hadn’t gotten a call from me in some time but I’d never talked about another woman I was interested in in _Hawaii_ …I’d just talked about my partner, his daughter, and the team. And well…you are living here, practically. She put the pieces together.”

Steve looks like he doesn’t know how to interpret the silence following his statement and he gets closer, ignoring all the previous space between them. One of his hands dares to rest on Danny’s back, in the hollow between his shoulder blades, and he sighs in relief when Steve traces invisible paths with his fingers, chasing away the tension.

“She’s gone?” he asks, feeling guilty without knowing why. He lets his head fall onto one of his partner’s strong shoulders, closing his eyes, deeply breathing in his nearness. Steve’s skin tastes like ocean salt.

“Yeah. Wanted…some space.”

But he doesn’t know if he’s talking about Catherine or him, _them_ , because Steve’s hands are moving again in the quiet room, circling his waist, gaining strength and surety as they explore without resistance.

He can’t believe him.

Well, that’s a lie. This is _Steven McGarrett._

He completely believes him.

“You realize this just shows what bad boyfriend material you are, right?” Danny asks, not knowing what else to say. His mouth is drawn to the soft skin on Steve’s shoulder. He hears him sigh with relief.

“It’s different with you.” Steve’s fingers rest on his hair, barely tangled in it, while his other hand moves Danny’s chin so that he can see his face, with a gentleness that seems discordant in the intensity of the moment. He seems to be searching for something in the back of his eyes with his penetrating gaze, sharp in such a familiar way. “It’s totally different with you.”

They’re just words, still, but…he _believes_ him. Danny has a huge, enormous, _stupid_ weakness for the guy.

But even so.

“If you do something like this again…I’m going to shoot you, you know that, don’t you?”

Steve’s mouth barely twists into a curve.

“ _Affirmative_.”


	7. Because you’re my calm in the middle of a storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay, RL kicked my butt yesterday. Enjoy!

It goes like this:

 

Steve doesn’t remember much about his mother. He remembers that she was perfect, smiling, with sharp, intelligent eyes. He remembers that she was beautiful, standing in the door of the house while Mary and he played in the water. He remembers her greeting his father with a quick kiss when he came home from work. He remembers her being uncomplicated, a little reserved, at his teacher-parent meetings. Sometimes he’s glad that Mary was younger than he was when she died, because memories can turn into longing, and Steve longs for the memory of his mother so much it burns. Especially when he _permits_ himself to remember.

Sometimes he’s afraid that he invented half those memories.

It’s worse with his father. Truth is, there’s no rhyme or reason to it, no reason at all, for the difference. Maybe time. His father had died last September but the worrying, anxious reality is that he’d lost him a long time before. And although it was John who’d pushed him out of his life, and Steve had resented the distance this created between them for years, he’d never made the effort to end it. He’d thought he could always return home and show his dad who he was. That he would listen and tell him how much he loved him and was proud of him some day.

But time passed by and so did the opportunities.

He wonders if that is what pushed him to hold on to Danny with both hands once he was sure there was something more than friendship between them. The question doesn’t keep him up at night, except that tonight it looks like it does. But tonight Steve is indulging a little while he breathes in the fresh morning air on his private beach, held prisoner by the sound of the waves, lost in memories of what had once been.

It’s startling when Danny’s arms trap his waist and his body leans solidly into his back, warm. His footsteps on the sand had gotten lost somewhere between consciousness and memory. Although he wouldn’t have allowed himself this moment of weakness in front of anyone else, Steve knows it’s hard to hide from Danny.

“It’s two in the morning, Danno. You should be sleeping.”

“The bed was empty,” Danny murmurs into his back. He has that sleepy tone he uses when he wants to drag him back to bed again, for reasons completely different from getting some rest. “It’s cold.”

“I don’t know how you can be cold in Hawaii. We’re in a tropical environment.”

Danny doesn’t respond immediately.

“Why are you here?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“I know that, Captain Obvious.” He doesn’t need to see his face to know he’s rolling his eyes, his voice tells him everything. “I mean, here. You always go swimming when something bothers you, you don’t stand on the shore, staring into the distance.”

Steve sighs.

“It’s the anniversary of my mother’s death tomorrow. It’s been years since I was on the island on this date.”

Something similar had gotten to him on his father’s birthday. It had been easy to keep it from being noticeable then because they’d been immersed in their daily complications, Steve had broken his arm, and Danny hadn’t brought up the subject but…April arrived like a new wave of memories, dragging everything to the shore, so close that Steve just had to stand there and look at the wreck abandoned by the tide.

They stood in silence, the two of them. Steve perceives movement at his back, faint steps moving away from him, but relaxes when Danny comes to face him. His hands feel warm against his face, and Steve closes his eyes and leans a little into the contact. He doesn’t want to reveal how greedy he is for the closeness, the nearness. But given that Danny spends nearly every night in his bed and is more  _aware_ of Steve than most people have ever been, it’s a little silly to deny himself what he needs right now.

“It’s okay to feel a little lost,” Danny tells him, in the same tone of voice he uses with Grace. Affectionate and soft, so different from the one he reserves for other mortals. It sounds even more soothing in the night, a soft sigh over the sound of the ocean. “But you know you’re not alone, right? You don’t even have to talk to me…I can be here with you.”

Honestly, he kind of doubts that.

“I don’t know if you can be quiet that long.”

“Are you saying I talk too much?”

Steve laughs. The ephemeral smile flashing across Danny’s face tells him that was just what he'd been hoping for.

“Only when you’re awake.”

Steve drags him closer, wrapping his arms around him and trailing his fingers lightly across the skin under his clothes.

Sometimes Steve is tempted to tell him that, when they’re alone, they should be naked. Anytime that they’re alone, really. There are a lot of good approaches fluttering through his head. To start with, in the island’s tropical climate, sleeping together was enough to maintain body heat at night. And Danny had a wonderful body, toned, tanned golden, with well-formed muscles. Steve can’t appreciate it enough with all the clothes he wears…and clothes are overrated.

But Danny insists on wearing pajamas because it’s _Danny_ so of course he does.

“I don’t guess you want to go swimming with me, do you?”

Danny’s eyebrows go up.

“First you dedicate yourself to spreading the rumor that I don’t know how to swim, which I do, because you can’t stand the fact that I don’t enjoy it like you do, Aquaman…and then you end up asking me to go swimming with you. Is there a hidden message here?”

There’s something indecipherable in Danny’s tone.

“I’d never let anything happen to you in the water. Just like I’d never let anything happen to you on land,” Steve says without a second’s hesitation. He grins at the adorably stunned look on his partner’s face. “And as to whether you know how or don’t…seeing is believing, Danno.”

Danny looks at him for a long minute. He bites his lip, like he’s debating something internally, and at last he steps back quickly out of his embrace.

“Let’s go, then.”

“Where are we going?”

Danny rolls his eyes and tugs his arm forward, toward the ocean. Steve blinks, feeling a burst of anxious curiosity mixed with something very close to guilt. He can’t deny his always been curious to see his partner in the ocean, the brush of water against his gold skin and…

But—

“You don’t have to…”

Danny glares at him, pulling harder on his arm.

“Please.  _Shut up_.”

Only when they are rocking in the waves, far from shore and the obvious issues, far from memories and loss in time and darkness, does Steve trap him in his arms again. Danny doesn’t resist, going with him, moving without effort through the water. He thinks that they could stay here for eternity except he doesn’t want to make Danny stay here much longer than…well, than necessary.

“Hey. Will you tell me sometime why you don’t like the ocean?”

Danny turns his head to look at him and his expression is a mixture of emotions he can’t sort out.

“Maybe.”

It’s a good enough answer for Steve. For now. He tightens his arms around him and presses his lips against his temple.

“ _Thank you_ , Danno.”


	8. Because I don’t want to let you go, and I don’t want you to let me go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since the last chapter was late and short, here's another one. :)

It goes like this:

 

Steve realizes how much he misses Danny in the quiet of his car. It’s kind of weird to be so conscious of another person, of his presence and his absence. The house isn’t empty because Grace, bless her, is staying in what is usually Mary’s room. She’s done it all week, since Rachel and Stanley left the city. Danny has been ecstatic over the idea of the girl staying with them—over the idea that Grace will be with them for so many days—and Steve is still thinking about his happiness, savoring the moments in memory.

It had been a fantastic, wonderful week. One of those he can’t believe he deserves to have.

Until Danny was poisoned with sarin, of course.

 _Sarin_.

Bunches of words are running through his head, all dark ideas, and the images…images are piling up behind his eyelids. It’s bitter agony, so different from how he’s used to feeling, and it’s _terrifying._ And it shouldn’t be. The Navy had prepared him to survive. They trained him to confront any obstacle, to defeat anything. He guesses that’s the deal. Steve had to give everything: his life, his time, metaphorical and literal sweat and tears, offering it completely as part of the payment, to receive strength, success, victories. To be not better, but the best.

But the Navy hadn’t prepared him for Danny Williams.

Somewhere in his head there was an echoing chuckle. It sounded incredibly like Freddie’s.

_Whoever you fall in love with will be very special. I’m sure. And drive you crazy. Crazier than you are._

Back then, he’d laughed at his friend’s words. He didn’t think he’d ever change so much.

There was a reason he and Cath had broken up the first time. Before Danny. It wasn’t because of Billy. Catherine had told him then that they, what they had, wasn’t _real_. They’d been able to be friends then, in spite of how much it had hurt at first, and they’d ended up in bed again not long after. Maybe that’s why it had been hard for Catherine to accept that he was in a relationship with someone. Her reaction when she found out about Danny had been more surprise than anger, astonishment more than heartbreak. They’d both taken it for granted that he wasn’t made for that kind of a relationship. Steve had assumed that he…wasn’t made for long-term commitments.

He’d been running from them for a long time.

But with Danny…with Danny there weren’t any options except that kind of _relationship_. Because he, once he believed you were worth it, he included you in his bubble and kept you there. Although he was always complaining that Steve was taking control of his life, it was Danny who’d taken the first steps in their relationship, who’d given comfort, who’d surrendered. He was the one who’d come looking for him. He’d invited him out to eat, outside of the icy walls of his pain. He’d come into his house, too. Without knocking on doors, just walking in and feeling comfortable, opening his arms to cross the distance. Ignoring all of the bravado Steve could come up with to push him away. Scratching at the walls he’d so jealously constructed with every look and every smile and every stupid argument about Hawaii and New Jersey and…

And then there was Grace, who was an integral part of him. And a history that was written on his skin, in his heart, tied to him the same way that the deaths of his parents were tied to Steve. A history that he wanted to know.

He had let himself be surrounded by it. And he’d wanted, yearned even, to have that kind of connection.

If you loved Danny, you had to accept _all_ of him.

_When I told you that I’m here with you, I meant this too. I don’t want to just see the good parts._

Steve was in a committed relationship, contrary to every prediction that had been made in his life. And he couldn’t let go. He didn’t want to.

Even when it terrified him.

“Steve?”

Grace got his attention from the backseat. She’d been sympathetically quiet since he’d picked her up from school.

“What is it, sweetheart?”

“Mom’s on the phone. She wants to talk to you.”

Danny hadn’t been happy when he’d seen Grace’s cell phone. The look on his face was engraved in his mind.

He reached a hand out for the cell. Grace’s eyes followed his every move.

“I couldn’t talk much with Danny the first time Grace called me and I wanted to make sure that…How is Daniel?”

Rachel sounds fragile on the other end of the line.

“He’s…the doctors gave him the antidote in time,” he responds, very aware that Grace is listening to the conversation. “He’s going to recover. He’s very strong, our Danno.”

He smiles at the little girl through the rearview mirror, and wins an answering smile.

Rachel, on the other hand, sighs. It’s a surprise to hear the relief in her voice. Steve wonders if Stan also feels a flash of irritation every time that the memory of what was comes up between Danny and Rachel.

“He told me he was fine but—but I can never be sure with him. He’s not good at letting people take care of him.”

Steve can vouch for that. Danny hides away to lick his wounds, moves away when they want to help him. He knows that they’re alike in this and at the same time, very different.

“He’s fine…as much as he can be. They’ll keep him in the hospital under observation to be sure but the prognosis is very optimistic.”

“I’m happy to hear that, Steve,” she assures him. “Are you sure that you don’t mind if Grace stays with you? I can ask our babysitter…We’re taking the first available flight but—”

“Rachel.” He inhales deeply, trying not to sound as exhausted as he feels. “It’s no bother. Completely the opposite. I love having her as a guest.”

“She cares about you a lot,” Rachel says, her tone hard to define. “Danny says you’re incredibly good with her.”

Steve can feel his smile growing. He knows he’s not good with kids in general, so the words are even more powerful. Especially because Danny is the best father he’s ever met.

“I try. It’s easy with Grace.” A pause. “She’s an incredible girl.”

“She’s listening to every word, isn’t she.”

Steve laughs. The day started out so bad, it feels almost…wrong. But it isn’t.

Danny is okay. Grace is okay. And anyway, everything doesn’t look as bad as it did when he got into the ambulance in the morning.

“Yes. But I mean it all the same.”

“Very well, then. Honestly, I can’t thank you enough,” Rachel says, more reserved. “We’ll be there soon. Goodbye.”

Steve hands the phone back to Grace.

“Hey, _kamalei_. I know you want to stay at the hospital but…what do you say we get a surprise ready for Danno when he comes home?”

Grace’s face lights up with her smile.


	9. Because I admire you.

It goes like this:

 

Steve can’t sleep. He should sleep, he thinks, since the thing he’s been waiting for all during these eternal weeks has happened. Danny was released after his latest close encounter with death, with a more than optimistic diagnosis—although the doctors warned him that sarin can have long-term effects and he should be watchful—and he is deep asleep, without a care or worry.

_Danny is all right._

He really should take advantage of the down time too. It hadn’t been a grand reunion this afternoon, but it was noisy and emotional enough to break through their bubble a little and remind them that there were people who’d been worried by recent events. It had started out as a private celebration for them and Grace, thanks to Rachel having the grace to leave her over to sleep and spend more time with Danny now that he was out of the hospital. But Steve wasn’t surprised to see Chin and Kono at their door after two in the afternoon. And somehow he wasn’t astonished either when the welcome party ended up including Kamekona and Max as well. And Jenna, of course.

If it wasn’t for Jenna, they would’ve lost Danny. _Steve_ would’ve lost…

He refuses to continue that inappropriate thought and concentrates on his partner again.

Danny who, in spite of his best intentions, hadn’t been able to stay awake until the end. Who’d fallen asleep against his shoulder on the sofa, reminding him of the first times they’d slept together, tempting Steve to close his eyes and follow his example. Who’d said goodbye with hugs and kisses from all the guests, getting smiles, and worried and sympathetic looks in equal measure. Who is possibly the most cynical person that Steve knows, but even so, in spite of himself or maybe because of that, brings light to everyone else. Who is everything that Steve admired in John McGarrett and much more, because he’s ready to fight to spend time with his daughter and the people he loves. To follow them through the world instead of pushing them far away. Who’d managed to make a place inside his heart, deeper and larger than he’d anticipated.

_His_ Danny, who is alive and well. At home with him. Where he belongs. And Steve doesn’t intend to let him go anywhere.

This relationship is becoming _disgustingly_ sweet. If anyone was listening to him…

“I can hear you thinking, McGarrett.”

Danny had murmured something unintelligible to Steve when he joined him in bed, a little too careful not to disturb his well-earned rest. But after tumbling into to the circle of his arms without further invitation, half his body covering him like a blanket, he’d seemed out for the count.

Obviously he’s awake now.

“Sorry, Danno. Go back to sleep.”

Danny shifts a little, maybe to turn on the light and start arguing but Steve tightens his arms around him.

“Something wrong, babe?”

He’s not good with words, never has been, and Danny says that he doesn’t need to force himself to say things…But the truth is that Steve feels that telling Danny, simply, _You mean so much to me_ isn’t enough and isn’t accurate. Telling him that he’s made his life easier would be a lie, especially since nothing has been easy over the last year. But it’s also true that without Danny, Steve would be in a darker, more miserable place, swallowed up by ghosts and memories. Feeling empty and alone.

He presses a kiss against his skin, inhaling deeply to forget all of the black ideas.

“ _Aloha au ia ‘oe,_ Danny.”

There’s a long, infinite minute of silence.

“ _What?_ What does that mean?”

Steve exhales, more relieved than he should be feeling, and closes his eyes. Maybe someday he can say it in a way Danny can understand. Maybe he can start using words.

“Good night, Danno.”

“What? You said _good night_ in Hawaiian? I’m sure that’s not what that means. It’s not how you say good night to my daughter…Steve? I know you’re not asleep, Steven. You _can’t_ be asleep. Steve!”


	10. Because you make me forget that the rest of the world exists.

It goes like this:

 

It had been an exhausting day, with pieces of the puzzle left in his car and horrible facts wrapped in riddles.

The Governor had set up a meeting with him for the following day, sounding strangely nervous on the other end of the phone, and he doesn’t want to stop and think about it too much. The money that had been stolen from the police was a subject waiting insistently in the background but there were plenty of other things to worry him at the same time. Like the fact that she was close to the Noshimuri before their fall, or the look on her face when Steven found her having lunch with the enemy…the way that she sometimes used Five-0 to her friends’ advantage. None of it indicates that she is intrinsically evil, and Steve knows how politics work and never doubts that these kinds of motives were behind the original proposal that gave life to his operation, but he’s starting to be afraid that it could be a lot more.

And he’s afraid he’s getting paranoid.

He hopes he can talk it over with Danny because his partner seems to be able to see where Steve is blind. He isn’t coming to work in the office yet, mainly because he asked him not to, and because Kono and Chin insisted that he should stay on the fringes of things for awhile. Danny was getting tired of being careful, everyone could see that, but since Grace has been hanging around he’s been calm and tried not to complain. Much.

“Danno?”

His voice seems louder in the silence.

He hears the sound of the television as he walks toward the living room but it remains a distant murmur, fragile compared to the waves. He expects to see Danny asleep on the sofa, a deliciously frequent occurrence when Steve leaves him alone for long. Generally he says that the bed feels empty, and although Steve hasn’t shared a bed for as long a time he knows exactly what he’s talking about. When Danny was in the hospital and during the weeks when he refused to stay more than a couple of days, sleep had been a long time coming.

Steve blinks when he sees that it isn’t Danny who’s sleeping on the sofa. He’s sitting there, sure, completely at home—and Steve doesn’t feel stupidly happy about that, not at all—with Grace tranquilly asleep in his lap. Danny is running his fingers through her hair and looking at her, with that expression on his face that Steve has no defense against. The same look that he had when he said that this little girl is his life. The one he had that time that he found out that Grace and Rachel had been attacked, when he practically shot out the door to look for her. The one he had when Steve took Grace to the hospital, after the sarin poisoning, and told him _I have everything I need right here_.

Danny looks up and smiles, his expression still soft. He enjoys having the domestic version of his partner, barefoot, far removed from the shoes, shirts, and ties. So comfortable in his house, as if he belongs nowhere else.

“Hey, I didn’t hear you arrive,” he says, his voice a pale imitation of his usual mocking tone. “I’m going to have to put a bell on you.”

Steve realizes that he can’t speak. Or, rather, all the words he wants to say are held prisoner in his vocal cords. Occasionally, when he comes in the door of his house and finds Danny and Grace on the other side, he feels like he’s living in an illusion, a life that belongs to someone else, an image of something that escapes him even in dreams. The Navy had prepared him for many things, but living normally wasn’t one of them.

Danny frowns, suddenly concerned by the lack of response, and Steven shakes his head. There’s a space on the sofa that has his name on it, but he moves and sits down cautiously.

“I told you already, Grace isn’t going to wake up,” Danny’s smile fills the empty spaces inside of him with warmth, the ones he didn’t even know existed until they met. “She sleeps as hard as you do.”

Steve can’t help seeing the soft, peaceful expression on Grace’s face. He feels a smile spread across his face.

When he looks back at Danny, a small part of Steve tells him not to get used to it, that someday he’ll lose everything, to enjoy every moment and save them up for living with the loneliness afterward. But most of him, instead, pushes him forward to trace Danny’s smile with his mouth.

“You’re like an addiction.”

“That’s not a good thing,” Danny says, but he leans forward again and shares several slow kisses for what feels like an eternity.

Maybe _addiction_ isn’t the right word. And maybe Steve can identify with that concept better than another. When he’s with him, when the three of them are together, he can forget all the things lurking in the corners, the problems outside the door get a little further away.

“Grace wanted you to help her with a project,” Danny says suddenly.

“About what?”

“It’s not science so don’t get too excited. She asked me if you could help her with some words in that language you speak here…but you were late so I called Kono to ask her for help.”

Steven blinks.

“Kono was the better choice to start with.” When Danny looks at him, Steve feels a little dizzy, as if he’s on the point of doing something stupidly risky. It doesn’t make sense. “I mean, I was born here and can help her with anything, but she and Chin have lived their whole lives on the island. Her family has a long and special history here.”

“Kono said the same thing, more or less. It was funny…she had to help us with the pronunciation and spell it out for us but since you and Chin left her alone in the office it kept her entertained.”

Now Steve has the explanation for Kono’s amused look when they came back from headquarters at the end of the day.

“Did you learn anything, Danno? I think the only word you really know is _haole_ , right?”

“Funny,” he says, rolling his eyes. Then his expression clears. “For your information, I did learn some things while talking to Kono. You guys use stupid long sentences to say nothing much, or sum up entire concepts in one or two words. Aloha? I’ve thought for a long time that it was just a greeting.”

Steve laughs. It’s cute and also pure Danny, opposed to anything new.

“Depends on the context. _Aloha_  isn’t the most complicated word we have.”

There’s a sudden change in Danny’s eyes and Steve abruptly realizes that he’s fallen into a trap, although he doesn’t know what kind. He goes over the conversation mentally for an instant.

He doesn’t understand.

“What?”

“Grace asked if she said  _aloha_  to me,was she saying that she loved me, and Kono said there was a particular way to say it to someone you love.”

Steve hates the way his stomach twists at the words. Danny remains silent, clearly looking for something in his face, and he doesn’t know if he finds it, but he’s smiling when he comes close for another kiss. He murmurs something against his lips that sounds like _ya-tibialublu_ and makes no sense at all.

Danny’s smile is enormous when Steve moves away.

“What?” he asks, totally innocent.

“What did you just say?”

“It’s Russian,” Danny answers, laughing. He tries to keep his face straight and then repeats, enunciating slowly. “я тебя люблю.”

Steve blinks while his mind registers the new information. He didn’t know Danny spoke Russian.

“So what does it mean?” That question should’ve been enough for now, but a bunch of others tumble out, one after another. “How long have you spoken Russian? Why didn’t you ever tell me? What other languages do you speak?”

Danny laughs a little harder, trying to calm down when Grace starts to move.

“I just know a few phrases in Russian, I don’t speak it. And I learned this phrase in particular when I was working undercover before Grace was born.” He pauses, his smile a little melancholy. His eyes go back to the sleeping girl and Steve feels something warm and inexplicable squeezing his heart. “I wanted to say that I loved her in every language I could learn. That’s why Gracie asked Kono how to say it in Hawaiian, to keep adding ways. It’s silly.”

“You’re something else, Danny Williams,” he murmurs.

“You love me anyway.”

Steve feels a little trapped, but he can’t deny it.

“ _Aloha no au ia ’oe,_ Danno.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I don’t speak Hawaiian or Russian, I just looked it up for this chapter. Any mistake is mine. **я тебя люблю** , which is apparently pronounced _ya tyebya lyublyu_  means ‘I love you.’ And **aloha no au ia 'oe** , means ‘I really love you,’ and is a variant on what Steve told Danny in the last chapter.
> 
> Yep, they’re a pair of idiots saying that they love each other in other languages.
> 
>  
> 
> T/N: Yeah. Cause I've never done this. Nope.


	11. Because I trust you with my life and my heart.

It goes like this:

 

“So, what made you think of this?”

“Of what?”

Apparently unsatisfied with his answer, Danny bites his shoulder in revenge. The kisses that follow are warm and soft, fluttering over his lips, his cheeks, his eyelids, and his jaw like restless butterflies. His body is already relaxed, oblivion raining through his thoughts while he ignores the world outside their hidden hotel room, far from their day-to-day life. Danny had asked him why searching for a godforsaken place in a chain of godforsaken islands in the ocean seemed like an attractive way to spend his weekend, and Steve reminded him that he still hadn't seen all the islands in the archipelago.

“And, you know, Danno,” he’d said, with his best smile when they registered in the hotel acting like tourists, “Hawaii isn’t ranked fourth in the list of the _smallest_ states in the US. That’s New Jersey.”

And not even his partner could argue with statistics.

Danny had given him one of his _looks_.

“Yeah, well, not everything in life is about size, don’t you agree?” He'd wiggled his eyebrows, voice low and suggestive.

Apparently, yes he could.

“Seriously,” Danny insists, because he’s Danny and obviously has to find the motive behind everything, paranoid. Steve leaves the memory and focuses on his face. “What are we doing here? If you’d planned it you would’ve brought the tickets you already have that Kono gave you for your birthday. Instead you just kidnapped me like the Neanderthal you are.”

It’s sad that he’s right.

His strategy hadn’t worked all that well, he has to remind himself, if the idea was to forget the world for a few days, a few hours.

He doesn’t want to think about why they are here.

He pushes Danny without any force to reverse their positions, pressing him into the bedspread to make him think about something totally different, but he stops to look at his face in the dim light. His blue eyes remind him of the ocean, evoking the home that he’d once had, and the connection that he’d searched the world for, the connection he longs for. Danny’s eyes drag him deeper and deeper. If there’s something that Steven is always looking at it’s Danny, and the streetlight shining through the window is more than enough to make light and shadows across his face. At home, the dawn tints everything golden, and Steve, who wakes up early, can appreciate the ochre light changing the room and Danny’s face while he sleeps. But they are far from home and even farther from the color of the dawn.

Danny’s no-longer-gold face doesn’t understand how they managed to end up in this darkness covering them, and even so he can’t stop looking at him.

“Do I have something on my face?”

“You love ruining the moment, don’t you.”

“You’re staring at me,” he responds, pressing his nose against Steve’s, his smile just as wide as before. It’s one of his favorites, those rare ones that look brilliant on his face and light everything up. “I’m just asking.”

“I look at you all the time.”

Steve shouldn’t say that out loud. The admission leaves him so exposed, so vulnerable, but he can’t help saying the words. They’re alone, he can be sure that nobody else knows how important he is to him, how much losing him terrifies him.

If he had know it would be like _this_ , he would’ve thought twice before starting a relationship. Or three or four times.

But instead he’d leaped without looking—like he always did—and now he couldn’t imagine any other future, any other end to the beginning. Not when his days aren't empty and he feels like he has a place to come back to. Not when he doesn't wake up alone in his bed anymore, doesn't feel chased by ghosts in his own home. Not when he has Danny’s smile first thing in the morning. Not when Grace’s voice is engraved on his memory, telling him how happy she is to know him while Danny watches them, not too far away, without a trace of doubt on his face. Not when Danny laughs with that dark note that makes his blood heat, and Steve returns like the waves to the shore, chasing the taste of that sound and the texture of his mouth.

“I’d noticed that,” Danny says, between careless kisses. “That you look at me. I hope you know that you’re about as subtle as I am Hawaiian.”

Steve frowns.

“If you're still talking I must be doing something wrong.”

He can see the challenge flash in Danny’s eyes.

“You wanna shut me up? I think you’ve got some work to do here.”

It’s his turn to laugh.

He’s never backed down from a dare and that’s a fact that no one misses. Steve is always trying to prove that any idea that doesn't agree with his own is a mistake. Danny loves using that against him, making him do things that Steve probably wouldn’t do without a challenge.

“You want to bet, Daniel?”

 _That_ slow, wolfish smile stretching his lips is also one of his favorites.

There can’t be anything less than _this_ between them, even though he’s pretty sure he doesn't intend to ever let him get away. Something inside of him just found an echo when they met, a greeting and a welcome. Even when he’s refusing to think about anything but the immediate moment, he's seeing Danny in the _future_. In his future.

And with Danny comes Grace. And Chin and Kono. And Mary, maybe. Ohana. It’s terrifying and not at the same time. Steve doesn’t think about giving up now that he knows what he has.

He’s already lost too much.

When a new day starts he’ll tell him why he needs a moment to escape. He’ll talk about his suspicions and the memories that overwhelm him all the time. About the Governor seeming shadowy, more like the darkness of his past than the light of the present, and how he needs to protect this fragile, brilliant world that they are building together.

He’ll tell him he loves him, too. And they really should think about something more definite. Maybe...some kind of commitment.

But all that can wait.


	12. Because I can see a wild, marvelous future for us.

It goes like this:

 

Danny wants to credit his moodiness to ordinary things like Jenna Kaye’s constant presence. He still doesn’t totally trust her in spite of Steve’s praises. There’s also the deep shadow, heavy and persistent, hanging over Five-0 in the shape of Wo Fat. But the most unsettling thing is the fact that Rachel has confirmed that yes, she did the necessary tests, and can say with absolute certainty that she is pregnant. He’s more upset than he’d expected, honestly.

He hasn’t heard his ex-wife sound so happy in a long time. Danny really doesn’t know how to feel about it overall. If he looks too closely at it his thoughts twist into a maze. Truth is, he’s not allowing himself to wonder about and question what he’s already decided. He shouldn’t do that. He doesn’t want to do that. Stanly and Rachel had wanted him to be the donor which is…surprising, to say the least. Astonishing. Unbelievable. It made him uncomfortable—and honored, too—that they thought of him for something so important.

However, the announcement of their success made him feel brittle.

Danny already knows that he wants to be a father again, that’s not news, but it’s a thought he hasn’t dared to say out loud. He hasn’t dared to think about it as more than vague notions and daydreams. His relationship with Steve is still too new, although it doesn’t feel like it, to think about throwing _that_ bomb. Grace still has to get used to the idea of having a sibling, sharing _her mom_ for the first time in ten years. She’s not all that enthusiastic about the idea and he can’t blame her. His little monkey is used to being an only child.

And, just as important, he has no idea if Steve _wants_ to have children.

Steve doesn’t come off as the kind of person who wants a house full of kids, a white picket fence, and a dog. He’s amazing with Grace, always seeming to overcome any obstacle. Danny is sure he’d be an incredible father, if he wants to be. If he gets the chance. But, _does he want to?_

He’s not sure. He doesn’t know if this dream will come true someday, or if it will make him realize that what they have just isn’t what he wants for the future.

And Danny is convinced, totally and absolutely _convinced_ , that these ideas shouldn’t be tormenting him this early in the relationship.

Certainly, the fantasy turning into reality is still shaking him up a bit.

Rachel’s child won’t be Danny’s child. The kid might share his DNA, but wouldn’t be his. That was Stanley’s role, entirely.

“I don’t know what the computer did to you to piss you off so much, but please, forgive it.”

Danny blinks.

“What?”

Steven gives him one of his quick smiles, the stupidly attractive ones, but then frowns when he doesn’t get the expected response. Danny doesn’t even want to know what he sees on his face.

“Danno?”

He doesn’t trust his mouth not to say something stupid, so he nods his head. “It’s the paperwork on this last case. Nothing big.”

Danny has a couple of good excuses to explain any weird behavior—always useful when your close friends are determined to investigate. With Steve, who is stubborn the way only he can be, it’s been more difficult to hide himself completely.

He won’t let it go if the answer doesn’t convince him.

“Uh-uh.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a horrible liar?” Steve asks him, not looking persuaded at all. He gives Danny another look, studying him, and finally moves away from the door. “Come on, I’ve got to get you out of the office. You look like you need some fresh air.”

He’s probably right. Danny opens his mouth to protest simply because he can but changes his mind at the last minute.

“Okay,” he says. He shuts down the equipment on automatic pilot. He’s aware that his mind is way off track and he’s not going to be able to focus right now.

Steve raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment on how easily he gives in. He doesn’t say anything while he guides him through the meeting room either, nor when Danny stops for a moment to look at Chin and Kono while crossing in front of their offices. The cousins smile at him and continue their work. Jenna waves when she looks up from the computer she’s working at.

In spite of his reservations about her, Danny can’t deny that she’s a good addition to the team. She’s dedicated, determined, and also has resources. She gets points for spending time researching Wo Fat outside of work, compiling and assessing information. They’d been close before but they’re getting much closer now. He’s convinced it’s just a question of time before they catch him. He’s been making some calls, himself. Since he threatened Steve and Jenna during their last encounter (Danny is still grateful he was there, that he’d convinced Steve to let him participate, and he was satisfied that he’d recorded the conversation for future use), he’s promised himself that he won’t let that bastard win.

With the Yakuza in their sights since the Five-0 investigation, Victor Hesse in prison, and HPD free of spies, Danny believes that they’ll get the chance to catch him soon.

Wo Fat is running out of exits. Just like what had happened with the Noshimuri, being secure has made him careless and he’s made the mistake of underestimating them.

The one thing he’s hoping for is that Steve won’t have to pay a price for it. God knows enough bad things have happened lately. That’s another reason that Danny isn’t planning on telling him how much Rachel’s news has shaken him up. He really shouldn’t have done it.

He’d known how it would end up since the day he’d agreed to her request.

“Your silence is worrying,” Steve finally says; his good humor has evaporated.

He sighs.

“I thought you’d appreciate the change.”

Steve had guided him toward the Camaro through two floors without a mishap.

“I don’t,” he acknowledges. Danny raises an eyebrow before opening the door. “Well, I admit that sometimes I need it. Especially when you talk and talk and talk…but I don’t want you to change. I don’t like change.”

“You don’t like change you can’t control,” Danny points out, and climbs into the copilot’s seat.

Steven presses his lips together into a thin line while he gets comfortable behind the wheel, but he doesn’t argue. It’s true and they both know it. Danny rolls his eyes when it becomes obvious that they aren’t going anywhere soon.

“If you pull me out of the palace down to the car, I really expect you to have more interesting plans than us sitting in the parking lot.”

Steve turns to look at him, his expression pensive. It’s the kind of look that gives Danny a bad feeling when they’re in the field. It’s also the kind of look that gives him other ideas when they’re not at work.

“We’ve never had sex in the parking lot.”

Danny blinks. It takes him a moment to process the information and give a coherent answer.

“First, this is the Aliiolani Hale parking lot, where we work. The Governor comes here sometimes, Steven. You know that. Your _boss_.” He can feel the heat climbing up his neck but refuses to give Steven the pleasure of seeing him blush. He’s not a schoolboy, dammit. “Second, I’m not an exhibitionist.”

Steve’s smile doesn’t slip at all.

“The first reason is more important than the second?”

“We are not having sex in the car,” he says.

“Not right now, but we could change that.”

“You’re incredible.”

“So you’ve told me.”

Danny laughs. “It wasn’t a compliment.” Although he can’t help sounding less tense than he’d been in the office. “And didn’t you say something about fresh air? Getting out would do me good.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Steve is clever.

More than anyone, he knows that Danny can’t stand silence. He stays quiet to give him space to fill. The fact that he didn’t turn on the radio to play his irritating music collection as soon as he started the car, didn’t follow a familiar route, emphasizes his intentions.

He also knows that Danny doesn’t tend to talk about his problems any place where someone could overhear. He’s never been especially prone to loading others down with his doubts and problems…Of course, this doesn’t stop him from giving them his opinions. He’s just reserved about the things that really affect him. It’s something that Rachel had accused him of for most of their marriage and through all of their divorce and beyond.

In a way, the Camaro is a confessional.

“Tomorrow is Wednesday,” he comments to Steve, distracting him from other themes. “Are we expecting another envelope with the toolbox stuff? Do you know how much we need to get this?”

Steve throws a sideways look of accusation at him. It’s the only subject he can’t ignore and Danny knows it.

“We’ve got enough. But…Yesterday I called the Governor. She said she needs to talk to me about something as soon as possible. Chin told me that she was trying to find me last weekend…”

“But she didn’t have much luck, given our secret getaway,” Danny finishes. “I have to admit, our timing sucks.”

Steve nods. His mouth quirks.

“You sound more like yourself, partner.”

“Are we going to see her now?”

“Tonight. And we aren’t going to see her. We invited her to dinner.”

That was unexpected. “ _At your house?_ ”

“She wanted me to pick the meeting place.”

Danny remembers that Steve isn’t sure he trusts the Governor, and although his suspicions were terrifyingly valid, he refused to believe them entirely.

“Do you still think she could be implicated in what’s going on? With Wo Fat?”

“We can’t eliminate anything yet, Danno. We’ll talk to her tonight.”

“Do Chin and Kono know?”

“Not yet. We’re going back to my house, I want to tidy up. And meanwhile you can tell me what’s bothering you.”

“A lot of things bother me.”

“Maybe so,” Steve says, glaring at him. “But there’s something in particular that you’re not telling me.”

Danny opens his mouth to counter when an idea occurs to him.

“Grace told you, didn’t she?”

“I talked to her this morning while you were showering,” Steve says, his voice a soft caress. “She’s not very excited about the idea of having a brother or sister.”

“It’s a big change for her.”

“And for you.”

He shrugs in response. “I knew it would happen.”

Steve stares at him, still studying the changes on his face. “A possibility isn’t the same as a confirmation, Danno.”

“I’m fine.”

“I know you are. It’s just that, I think, you might be a little upset over the news and you need time to get used to the idea. Like Grace, you know.”

Although Steve hides it well, Danny already knows every shade and detail in the McGarrett language. There’s a flash of doubt that hadn’t been there before, his uncertainty showing in his posture and making Danny want to erase it immediately. He knows the exact cause.

“It’s just…While I was thinking about this I realized that I’d like for us to have the possibility some day, you know?”

In spite of everything, Steve relaxes. The fact that he can think Danny isn’t one hundred percent committed to their relationship tells him he has to do better. “You want us to have the…? You mean you and me having a child?”

“I know, I know,” Danny has no idea what Steve’s expression means, maybe it’s surprise, maybe it’s confusion or maybe he’s stunned. He’s trying to avoid a categorical refusal before it happens. “We just got together and maybe it’s too much—”

“You want to start a family together?”

Danny swallows all of his arguments.

“Steve.” He needs to hear what he’s about to say, because it’s important. “We _have_ a family together, I think we have one and… I’m just saying…in the future, maybe, we’ll add someone else. And the light is green. They’re going to arrest us for obstructing the public thoroughfare if you don’t start driving.”


	13. Because we’re a team, perfectly balanced

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I don't know when, but there will be a third part in this universe.

It goes like this:

 

Steve wasn’t sure if the plan would work. Since Pat Jameson had come to his house and confessed a long list of crimes she’d covered up or participated in, he hadn’t been able to get it out of his mind. Five-0 had been founded on a lie, on a deception.

On another deception.

He wanted to believe Danny when he said that it didn’t change anything, that they still did good things for the island. But Steve couldn’t stop thinking about the list of cases that the Governor had interfered with, the things he had done in her name. She’d used them like her own private crime-solving team, and he’d sensed it, at some point, after discovering how close she was to the Noshimuri. But on the other hand, he’d didn’t have any impression that she’d formed Five-0 in order to keep him under control. She’d given him immunity and absolute freedom, given them power on a corrupt island and separated them from the police. The police that his father didn’t trust.

Whatever else was true, the plan _had_ worked.

Steve went to the Jameson mansion on the stipulated day with Danny as his backup, Chin as his eyes and ears in the district, and Kono not far away. Wo Fat had been there, waiting. He’d been there ready to kill Pat Jameson, something she hadn’t suspected at all. Ready to frame Steve as the murderer. He’s spent a long time gathering clues and creating a motive, and Steve suspected that he’d have been lucky to escape the carefully-laid trap, if it hadn’t worked out like it did.

So now Wo Fat was in prison, for the moment, and the Governor was being investigated. And Five-0 didn’t have a reason to exist anymore. Sam Denning, however, seemed less belligerent once they’d agreed to stay on the sidelines and leave the investigation, with all its possible ramifications and consequences, alone.

“Hey.”

It’s Danny, of course it’s Danny. Steve wants to reach out and drag him into his arms and his bed, but the last time he’d seen him they’d said some pretty nasty things. He knows that Danny isn’t going to hold a grudge, but he isn’t sure if he could take a rejection right now.

“Want to talk about it?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Danny.”

“You know it wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known about all this plotting going on…If Jameson had gone ahead, it’d probably be a different story.”

“Tell that to Laura Hills.”

Danny snorts.

“I’m not saying it would be better,” he says. “But you could be in jail for a crime you didn’t commit. We might never be able to go back to—”

“To what? Five-0 doesn’t exist anymore, Danny. It’s fulfilled its purpose.”

“Maybe Jameson made some mistakes but Five-0 wasn’t one of them, Steve. The people that we help…the lives that we save. Those aren’t mistakes.”

Steven sighs. He can’t deny the truth. It’s a relief, really. The lives that they saved, the people that they helped…That was all real. Chin, Kono, and Danny…what they mean in his life is real too.

“Denning said this isn’t going to be permanent. And if it is, well, we can open a private detective agency, right? We’ll do everything over. Recruit a couple more people because you and I would destroy the office if we were alone…” The corners of Danny’s mouth curl up as he rambles, which doesn’t always happen. “Or we’d never get to work, knowing you. We need…balance. I’m thinking about the ex-surfer who wanted to be a cop, and an ex-cop that seems to want to be a cop again. I don’t think they could turn down working with us—”

Laughter feels really good, even thought it feels inappropriate.

“It won’t be the same, Danno.”

“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be worse.” A solemn pause. Steve can feel the change in the air, in spite of everything. “Worst-case scenario, Wo Fat would’ve killed you.”

Yes, well, it’s not like it’s not still a possibility. He’s got people outside of prison.

“Some of his accomplices could still do that.”

“They’d have to go over my dead body first,” Danny says. His voice is calm but intense, burning under the surface. “We got them, Steve.”

Danny shouldn’t think about the possibility but Steve is also ready to protect Danny until his last breath. That had been true even before they’d started this relationship.

That he’d rather be _alive_ is a little newer. He wants to see Mary again, and his Aunt Deb, to build a relationship with their memories; he wants to see Mary be happy. He wants to see Chin overcome his ghosts and find a way back to the life he renounced. He wants to see Kono become the great cop she’s destined to be, to see her overcome that thread of insecurity she’s got in dealing with everyone. He wants to be part of Grace’s life. He wants to see her laughing on the beach, playing with her little brother who hasn’t arrived yet, hear her laughing with her father, and enjoy her childhood in a way he can’t express. He wants the idea of a boy or girl that Danny’s planted in his mind. And he wants Danny, everything that Danny can give him. He wants to have another day with him. And another day for them to go surfing with Grace, and another to lay around watching a children’s movie on the sofa…and another and another. He wants days and days, no matter what they do to fill the hours.

…Which is a little like what Danny’s been trying to tell him for the last few minutes.

“This is another one of those things, isn’t it?”

Danny, who’s been waiting in silence, maybe a little defeated, frowns. His expression would be funnier if Steve didn’t feel something very like tenderness stealing the laughter.

“One of those _things_?”

“Yes, you know, for better or worse. In sickness and in health. Like not caring about it if you get fat or too skinny or old…or your cold hands.”

Danny looks at him for a moment before shaking his head in fake indignation. There’s amusement in his eyes even if his expression is trying to hide it. “And then people don’t believe me when I tell them you’re a Neanderthal. What kind of proposal is _that_?”

Steve smiles. He leans forward to catch Danny’s lips in a kiss. One kiss turns into two, then three.

“Maybe you’re right,” he says. "But I’m your Neanderthal?”

“You’re an idiot, too.” Danny smiles against his lips. “And you know that the answer will always be _yes_.”

Perhaps there’s still a lot to do, a lot to work out. But everything will be all right if Danny is here with him.

There’s hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T/N: Again, so many thanks to Alphecca for allowing me to share her story! I hope you all enjoyed it.


End file.
